Credits

Friday, February 11, 2005

Reading through the news blurbs on Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey's recent traffic avoidence problem, I came across this article in the Herald. I didn't think anything of it at the time, and perhaps I'm making too much of it now, but the article contains this quote:

Republican Ian Bayne of Natick, who ran against Healey when she served as chairwoman of the state Republican Party in 2001, said Healey's ride is comparable to former Gov. Jane M. Swift's use of a state police helicopter to beat traffic home in 1999. Bayne said "government resources (were used) to get the lieutenant governor from Point A to Point B."

Ian Bayne just so happens to be the man behind the now-defunct Massachusetts Republican Society, which rankled the state GOP so much they revoked its charter. He's also credited as the the driving force to dump Jane Swift on the Republican ticket and bring Mitt Romney back 'home' to run for Governor. You can read an old American Spectator puff piece on him here.

So, the man responsible for saddling us with Governor Hairdo is making comparisons between Healey and Swift. It could be that he's just speaking out for the sake of getting his name back in the paper, but I wonder if he's not trying to maneuver himself into a position of being a potential Lieutenant Governor in case Kerry Healey becomes a liability in a campaign where one of the central themes will be continuity of government should Romney bolt for DC in or before '08. He's young and he's ambitious and the shortest path to Governor right now is to be the number 2 whenever Romney decides to step down. If his plan is to pick off a second female Lieutenant Governor, look for more noise from Bayne in the next few months. Otherwise, put another tick in the 'Paranoid Internet Conspiracy Theory' column.